settingIndex was once a small and close-knit community, but the town located on the western side of Washington state has grown in recent years beyond anyone's expectations. It is the ideal place for those who work in Seattle but can't afford the city's high real estate prices, and for others the natural beauty attracts them to the town. And Index truly is a beautiful place - surrounded by thick evergreen trees, tall mountains and glistening rivers and lakes. While weather is typically rainy with overcast skies even this does nothing to take away from the beauty of the town, and it is only highlighted further when the heavy snow graces the town and caps the mountains in winter. To many, Index would seem like a paradise. And yet lurking beneath this visual beauty there is more to this town than anyone might ever imagine...

rulesPLAYBYS: Sims from the games Sims 2, 3 and 4 are used to visually represent player’s original characters (no characters from within the franchise are allowed). But, you do not need these games to join and roleplay! If you wish, you can post a thread in our out of character / general forum and list as many physical details about your character as you wish. The members of Index will happily try and make a character for you, and you can choose which one you feel best fits your vision.

AVATARS: Avatars should display your characters face clearly and should be at least 200 pixels tall, and 200 pixels wide.

THREADING & POSTING: When threading with multiple characters, it is important that you post only when it is your turn. This can be acheived by taking note of who has posted before you, and remember you are to always post after them. If you were the thread starter, then it is your turn after the final person has joined your thread.

When creating a thread you are required to place a tag before the title. Here are a list of types of thread you can create and how to tag each one:

[Open] Anyone is welcome to join your thread, with no limit on the number of characters.[Open - #] Anyone is welcome to join your thread, but there is a limit on the number of characters who can join. Replace the # with how many extra characters you will allow to join your thread.[Private] Only specific characters can join your thread.[Closed] This tag should be used for threads that only involve your character.

ACTIVITY: To keep threads moving, people are encouraged to post within three days when it is their turn. If you do not post within three days, and you have not asked people to wait for you, it is possible you will be skipped. Keep in mind this is just a suggestion. While we'd love for everyone to be active every day, we understand that real life and other hobbies are just as important, if not more. We want you to be active because you want to be, not because a rule is telling you to be.

MATURITY RATING: Public threads should all be PG. If roleplayers above the age of 18 wish to post content that could be could be considered graphic then it should be hidden from view using the [hide] [/hide] code, which will enable only those in the threads and administrators to view the content.

It had gotten to that point. Yeap I was standing in the fucking church again. Just walking over the threshold I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. Everything was fucked why not just make it more fucked. I couldn’t talk to the ancestors again they had made their desires very clear. I was to protect the Pack Master and then die. Knowing the end result of all of this was terribly comforting. That didn’t mean that I was going to achieve everything I needed to before Onyx killed me though. It didn’t mean that I had to follow all the rules and orders I had been given too and some of them I wanted to avoid, to dance around. My only option was to talk to the priest. He was meant to have some kind of fucked connection to his own God right? Wasn’t that how this shit worked?

“Granny, why do you go in that box with the priest?” Grandma patted my curls and smiled her crooked smile. “He listens to my problems, my dreams and lifts the burden of sins lilipet.” My small fingers lifted the Vanilla lollipop to my mouth nodding my head enthusiastically.

Maybe that was why I felt comfortable in this place. Grandma had been the only real family I’d had before my transformation. One of the few glimpses of home I’d experienced. She was the only human I really thought about fondly. Others grew on me now but they didn’t compare to my Granny. The same could be said about Sona and other wolves. Waiting patiently for the person before me I tapped my foot. Even having to stand in a fucking queue, what the fuck?

Sober for the first time in days I slipped into the confessional box knowing he was already there. That exotic concoction of scent filled the small space adding to the theatrics of this whole fucking place. Taking a deep breath in, I sighed on the release. “Bless me Father for I have sinned. I can’t remember when my last confession was, I can’t even remember what day it is. Too much drink, too much Fanger blood, too many nightmares. My head is fucked. I need help.” My voice almost sounded like I was pleading. Was I struggling that badly? “You said that I needed to make sacrifices last time, that I couldn’t separate Love and Duty. What’s more important? It would make it more simple if I just….abandoned one.” They were so intertwined I didn’t know if it even mattered. Everything I was doing was out of love. It was just that love for one was hate for another. “Or maybe I should be asking how do you decide what love is more important?”

There once was a little old PriestOf whom would make a succulent feastHe made friends with not manyExcept a pal he called LennyUntil he too, succumbed to the beast

47, 49, 44.5 121, 32, 14.5

I gazed down at the paper in my hand, a card, maybe twice the size of a business card, and in the center written in crimson, the message I had been waiting and dreading to receive. Many had come in for confession today, voicing their concerns and problems through the decorative mesh separator while my eyes, heart, and mind had been occupied with a message written by the devil himself. He did not have horns, fiery skin, a pitch fork, or scythe. He looked of a man with deep blue eyes and sharpened fangs. He was relentless and eternal. A thief of love, friendship, and souls and had taken the thirty-fourth person from me, not including the lives he stole for amusement, the lives belonging to those I couldn't even remember the names of.

I shoved the paper into my pocket for the first time since I'd found it resting on my night stand in the morning, wiped my eyes, and forced my empty gaze forward, staring at nothing. The next body entering in the adjacent enclosure aroused nothing within me, but the voice attached to the body had my eyes slowly rolling to the side, in the direction of where she spoke. You came back... I whispered, mostly to myself, and for the first time today I had no paper to steal my attention, to entrap my compassion. This was the first voice today that sounded desperate, and these were the first words today that felt substantial. And I, no longer with a visual object to compare to, suddenly felt a wave of guilt for the dismissive thoughts and useless guidance I had felt for and given to those that had come to me for help prior.

You cannot. I said firmly. It is not a choice. Love, all love is equivalent in that it should all be the most important, protected, and followed. I knew my guidance was still lacking, but I voiced it anyway, refusing to let what had been happening to me for years happen to anyone else. I had put duty above love, I had attempted to separate the two, and one was lost to me forever as a result. The one that I realized now, was far more important than the other.

His voice was actually beautiful. Which was a fucked describing word when speaking about a male. It wasn’t even meant as an insult either. I couldn’t fucking understand why I liked this place, felt calm here, why his smell and sound was like listening to the rain on the glass of Onyx’s house. There was so much to ask him, so much I needed to say but for a moment I felt tongue tied like I was twelve years old and trying to ask a much older boy to go to a fucking disco or something. “Yeah…I came back” My ears picked up what he was saying, I wasn’t going to hide that my hearing was much better than his. Why bother at this point? Fuck. Actually trying not to go into details was what was making this harder. I needed to be able to lay everything out. This was fucking confessional he couldn’t mention anything outside of this box. I was safe. “That sounds lovely, but love for one is hate for another for me right now.” I was speaking aloud what I had just thought a moment ago. It was the best way to describe my current predicament. Before we had spoken about my blood addiction, this time I needed to get something off my chest before it ate me alive.

I’d been thinking about my prophecy in concerns to what I saw and felt on the cliffs. Forcing myself to be sober had caused a fucking train reaction. Unfuzzing my brain had meant it had rebooted my memory. I didn’t like the conclusions I had been coming to. Onyx was given Sona for a reason, to make me open up. That was the only explanation I had. Why else would the ancestors show him something so precious to me? Didn’t that mean they were asking me to make a choice? Deciding what was important for me. I had to sacrifice her for him. The Ancestors demanded it. “If your God asked you to do something that would rip your heart out…would you do it?” Could I avoid this part of my prophecy? I didn’t know if I could do it. “I may not believe in your God but I suspect that you might be the type to see faith in any respect as being a positive. Wolves, we speak to our Ancestors they are our portal to a higher power. They see and know all.”

Whatever I had seen, had to be a lesson in kindness. Knowing how he felt. There was something else that was off. I’d forced myself to try and relive sections of my nightmare while chugging back the same shit Onyx drank. Whiskey. Being drunk was one of my saviors at the moment, but it was becoming more trouble than it was worth. Whatever filter I had between myself and my twisted dreams was thin as fuck when I was on the sauce. The constant repeats of symbolism in my dreams, they were from the scrying bowl. Blood coming from his eyes. The consumption of blood. His scars. Even though the Fanger blood I was pumping into my system was obviously from a horny bloodsucker, I still saw the pattern. “I want to help Vincent, I do.” Saying his human name sounded foreign on my tongue. Had I ever used it in his presence before? Probably not. “He’s the Pack Master of the prophecy the Ancestors gave me....but how the fuck do I ask him about something I know he doesn’t want to talk about?” How was I even going to start that fucking conversation? Hey, Vincent have you ever drunk blood before?

“What does the word Protect mean to you Priest? Is the physical enough?” I wasn’t of course, referring to my nightmares, that I wasn’t disturbed by now, more, worried. Fighting for him wasn’t going to be a problem. With him, now that might be an uphill battle. “I need to be able to follow my Ancestors wishes to the best of my ability, they are one of the three things I love more than anything.” The passion in my voice was testament to how much that statement was true.

Was I relieved at her return? Was I happy? There was a strange feeling in my chest, because to the first question there was a blinding yes rooted deeply into the front of my mind. To the second question, a dimmer, more haunting no. Many sought comfort with me, but in truth I was just as lost and unsure as the people sitting in the box adjacent to my own. I did not count sheep before sleep, I counted mistakes. Potentially poor guidance I'd given those in times of trouble. Words I'd spoken so surely but never lived by. There weren't fanged ghouls made of tar in my nightmares, there weren't goblins or beasts. But there was a monster, and his face mirrored my own down to every minor detail. And I thought of him, feared him, and fought him every second, of every day. That sounds incredibly complex. I glared at my hands, my eyes darting to the screen, then back to my fingers.

If it was for the good of someone else, yes. I said surely and honestly. Ignoring the conflict I suddenly felt for an answer I had given in many shapes and forms in the past. Something about it felt dishonest now. If it truly gives one strength... Not a sense of the word, not a feeling of the word, but honest and true strength, then yes, faith is unmatched in power. I listened, doing my best to compare her own higher beings to my equivalent, feeling a sense of understanding. But I also felt a weight of sadness for her, because as much as faith could be a powerful motivator, it could also be an incredible burden. In my experience, one is more likely to open up to you if they feel you have done the same for them. Nothing worthwhile was ever easy... Words I kept to myself this time.

The body, mind, and soul cannot be separated. If one is broken, they all break. So for me, protection of all three is without a doubt the only way. Anything less, in my experience, results in failure every time, something I suspect is not an option for you in your journey. I exhaled, fighting off the thoughts that were threatening to deviate my mind away from what was important nowYour body, mind, and soul need to be whole as well. I added, What do you feel you need in order to succeed at what you are trying to accomplish? The question was as serious as her statement was passionate.

This priest had a way of taking what was so fucked up in my head and laying it out in a simple sentence. If I could do that myself then I wouldn’t feel like I needed to come here. Yet a part of me had to admit that I probably would. It was just nostalgia it had to be. Walking into this place was like transporting to another dimension, one where I hadn’t found my Grandmother dead in her chair when I came home from school. “It is for the good for someone else, but at the same time it’s a death sentence for another and that’s why it pains me.” It was the same the other way around I was sure. That was why I was so fucked up. That’s why I had dove into a thick sludge of liquor, loud music and blood. There were other reasons sure. Very important glaringly obvious reasons. “I’m not fucking worried about how it makes me feel, I’ve always been miserable, it’s how I’m meant to be…I maybe an unnatural Lone Wolf who is a complete asshole but I’m not comfortable with knowingly sacrificing someone I love even if it’s to save another.” I knew the ancestors wanted me to choose Onyx. “Would you go that far?”

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. I had already known he was going to say that. “Trust me, I’ve tried that, I’ve told him things about myself that I never thought I ever would….it makes no stitch of difference, he’s still cautious of me and he should be.” The Priest made it sound so simple and really it was from a human perspective. “You don’t know Vincent, he has every right to not trust me, I would prefer it if he never did…” There was only one thing I could really trade for what I wanted. There was no way I could see myself tricking him out of the information. I would have to tell him about Sona, in order to ask him about what I’d seen. Then that wasn’t even a done deal. “He’s in pain….I know he is.”

“Failure is not an option. I suspect you know nothing of Wolves. We are pack animals. The fact I have no family, no pack and have been alone for ten years makes me a freak of nature, to be feared, shunned and avoided.” Every time I stated the obvious everyone thought I was fishing for some pity. Fuck they got it so wrong and it was infuriating but I couldn’t correct them. Anything to make them hate my company was a step in the right direction. “Without the blessing of the Ancestors when I die…I just…disappear…” I stared straight ahead feeling hollow inside at the very thought. Alone for most of my lifetime, to be then alone in death. How utterly depressing. “If I follow my destiny, then they will welcome me. I’ll have a home.”Mind. Body. Soul. I ran over the words in my head ever so slightly blushing at the word Body, because it did come with a double meaning. One that I was sooo not talking to a Priest about. “He’s depressed, suicidal, feels isolated and alone….so I have to fix that somehow. Vampires are attacking, something about clouds of ravens are coming….so I will fight to protect him.” Those two were simple to understand. Not easy to accomplish, but at least I got the jist. “How the fuck do I protect someone’s soul? Vincent, he’s not the spiritual type.”

Fuck this never failed to be heavy. The air in here seemed to actually thicken whenever I hit a hard wall of deep thought brought on by such smoothly stated words from the Priest. I wasn’t thinking about me. Did I really need to? “I’m going to die, it has been prophesized that Vincent himself will kill me…what’s the point in saving my own Mind and Body, what I’m doing now will save my soul.” Taking a deep breath I shifted around in the seat holding in that spicy exotic smell before slowly exhaling. “Originally I thought getting some clarity was what I needed, but I know what needs to be done, just not how I’m going to make myself do it.” Squirming uncomfortably I did have to finally say something I didn’t want to though. “I do need to get off the Vampire blood…I have….strange nightmares….of the err….naked kind…about…Vincent.” Saying it out loud almost sounded shameful like I was really asking for some Our Fathers and Hail Marys as penance for dirty thoughts. The dreams themselves while highly disturbing weren’t…bad…really….but Camille had made it clear that she was going to murder my ass if I didn’t at least try to get off the shit. So many ways to die….